10. Leading Under Stress: Be the Adult in the Room

It's been a big few weeks—Kels and I just bought our first house, baby is six weeks out, and I finally have my own Costco membership, so I'm basically a full adult now. But hitting some of these milestones got me thinking, because society's checklist for adulthood misses the most important part: emotional maturity. Maturity can be seen in three stages—the child who operates purely on pleasure and pain, the adolescent who becomes transactional and people-pleasing, and the adult who does the right thing simply because it's right, not to get something in return. That third stage is where real self-worth lives, and it's where leaders need to operate. The problem is that under stress, we regress. Our insecurities surface, our self-control slips, and we start justifying bad behavior. So the framework I want to leave you with is playing above or below the line: above the line is integrity, ownership, empathy, and curiosity; below the line is complaining, victimhood, defensiveness, and fear. You're going to slip below it at some point, but the goal is to build enough self-awareness to catch yourself and get back above the line faster. Get Weekly Insights on Leadership: Sign up for weekly tools to communicate and behave in ways that actually change other's behavior Sign up free here: https://www.dannycoleman.co Connect with Danny: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsdannycoleman/ Substack: https://substack.com/@dannycoleman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djcoley/